Malaria and Half of Humanity

According to a (slightly dated) article in The Wall Street Journal written by Sonia Shah, who wrote a book called The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years :

The malaria parasite has been responsible for half of all human deaths since the Stone Age, and one in 14 of us alive today still carry genes that first arose to help protect us from its ravages. ... Today, it sickens 300 million every year, and kills nearly 1 million, despite the fact that we've known how to cure it (with parasite-killing drugs) and prevent it (by avoiding mosquito bites) for over a century.

Quoting scientists who assert "we are on thin ice" with the disease despite recent roll backs in its prevalence, she notes

Malaria parasites have rapidly evolved resistance to every drug we've thrown at the disease, including, over the past few years, those based on artemisinin, the first-line drug currently recommended by the WHO. But the truth is that less than a quarter of people with malaria visit health centers for treatment anyway, studies show. In a study conducted in Burkina Faso, German epidemiologists found that 20% of malaria patients are prescribed the wrong drugs at the wrong doses, 10% don't bother buying the drugs they're prescribed and more than 30% don't take the drugs as prescribed.

Regarding this subject see as well the sensationally named but brilliant written The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett.

Via Fucking Homepage.